In Taiwan, where business anonymity is the cultural norm, Stan Shih stands out.

Databases have long helped managers operate their businesses. Now, more companies are using a special kind for analytical tasks. The payoff can be enormous: everything from transformed business models and stronger customer relationships to new sources of revenue.

The classical business model is a 19th-century invention. Has it outlived its usefulness? What should replace it? New research suggests alternatives that can lead to flexibility and growth for the bottom and top lines.

More than ever, companies are realizing that their real advantage lies in what they know. But how do you manage knowledge?

The old model, which says revenue growth and shareholder-value growth are correlated, does not go far enough toward explaining how the best companies create value. It ignores the formidable concept of strategic innovation.

Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation by Dorothy Leonard-Barton (334 pages, Harvard Business School Press, 1995)

The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi (284 pages, Oxford University Press, 1995)